Keepsake

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  "It's more than likely that whoever got Alison pregnant was the one who murdered her," she speculated. "Maybe to keep her from exposing him, because—who knows? It could be that he was married. Or in love with someone else. He could have been an older man. Someone prominent—the mayor, the coach, her doctor, anyone. And Alison was a minor, don't forget. It would have destroyed the career of anyone of any importance."

  Rand sighed and said, "You've worked it all out, have you, Sherlock? Take some advice. Don't run all your brilliant theories past Mom just now. I doubt that she'll be as impressed as you are with them. If I were you, I wouldn't bring up Uncle Rupert at all."

  "See, that's another thing I don't understand. Why is she so concerned for the sake of Uncle Rupert? Or even Aunt Betty, if that's who she's worried about. It's not as if they're still close. Or do you think it's just the Bennett name in general that's concerning her? That makes sense, although I still say she overreacted this morning. Did she tell you about our confrontation? I mean, she really freaked. She—''

  "I gotta go," Rand said, cutting her off.

  "Well—all right. If you're in that much of a hurry," Olivia said, hurt, as she swung her door open.

  She had one foot on the macadam drive when he said her name with that apologetic, melancholy smile that somehow always made things okay again between them.

  "Look," he told her, "maybe it's just that time of year. You know how intense Mom gets about the holidays. Afterward, she invariably feels let down. Statistically, this is when people are most depressed and anxious, you know—when they're most likely to kill themselves or, if they're sick, just give up and die. Did you ever think that maybe Mom just has a case of the January blues?"

  "Oh, come on, Rand," said Olivia. "You're not blind. Has she ever looked at you and burst into tears before in January?"

  "I gotta go," he said doggedly.

  They were twins. Olivia may not have possessed her brother's emotional acumen, but she knew when he was being less than candid. He was refusing to look her in the eye; obviously he was far more upset than he was letting on.

  "Bye," she said, puzzled by his response. "Tell Eileen I'll call her tonight."

  He drove off. Olivia decided, after all, that she did not want to face her mother just then. She told herself that she wasn't being cowardly, exactly, but that she and her mother needed a little time away from one another to calm down. Fortunately her parents lived in the back rooms of the house except when they entertained. They wouldn't even know that she had come and gone.

  A cold blast of wind cut through her, making her decision suddenly easier. Better to be with Quinn, snuggled in front of a fire.

  She glanced at the main-floor windows in the front of the house before she turned to go back to her car. As she did so, a figure retreated behind the drapes and out of her view, but not quite far enough to be undetected by her.

  In the soft light of the reception room, the same room that had been converted to a cloakroom for the New Year's Eve gala, Olivia recognized her father. He had been watching as she sat in the car with Rand. She was sure of it.

  ****

  Quinn Leary felt like a man being sawn down the middle as he sat alone at a table at Vincent's, a small and nearly deserted Italian restaurant three miles outside of Keepsake. He nursed his beer, despite the waitress's efforts to replace it with a new one, as he watched twilight deepen into night. Myra Lupidnick Lancaster was late.

  He was about to blow out the sputtering candle in the chianti bottle when she came in, looking different than she had at the tree lighting on Town Hill. Was it the big hair? She looped her coat on a peg near the register and turned to him with a self-conscious smile.

  Holy cats, she was decked out for a prom: the dress, red and shiny and drifting somewhere above her ankles, was not exactly business as usual. On the other hand, spaghetti sauce wouldn't show on it, so maybe that was why she wore it. Quinn stood up with a hapless smile and pulled out a chair for her. The woman was married and the mother of four children; he hoped she remembered that.

  "I'm really glad you agreed to meet me, Quinn," she said as she let him angle her chair for her. "I've been in such agony ever since I saw you on Town Hill."

  Quinn didn't like the sound of that at all. He took in her red, red lips and black, black mascara, and then he motioned for a waitress just so he'd have somewhere else to look. "What'll you have?" he asked.

  "Oh, a beer is fine." Myra looked up at the approaching waitress and ordered it herself: Miller draft, if they had it.

  She turned back to Quinn and said, "When I called and you said that you had been thinking of calling me, that's when I knew. I told myself, this is definitely an act of God."

  She made a small, quick sign of the cross which was so completely at odds with her getup that Quinn sat back in his chair, partly relieved but completely confused. "It must have been hard for you to get away," he said. "You have a big family."

  Remind her, remind her.

  "You're right about that," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "But George is home. Actually, he's been home all week on vacation. Well, not vacation, actually. Not in the regular sense. He's helping me and the kids pack. We're moving to Albuquerque. On Monday."

  "Ah." Okay, so Quinn was a jerk who couldn't read women. He relaxed his guard and said more congenially, "It'll be a big change from New England."

  "We're hoping. Two of our kids have asthma. And the living is so much cheaper there. George's people are out there—his father is a plumber, too, and George is taking over the business. Another good thing is that we'll have help with the kids when I go back to work."

  "Oh?" He shouldn't ask, but he did anyway. "And what is it that you do?"

  She said, "You'll laugh. I'm a nail stylist."

  "Why is that funny?"

  She wiggled her slender, pretty hands in front his face. The nails, once red, were broken and peeled. "I've been packing frantically all week, and seeing you was definitely a last-minute decision, so I didn't have time to—"

  "Oh, that's all right," he said, aghast at the possibility that she'd primp any more for him than she had already. "I won't tell if you won't."

  Something in what he said sent the gaiety in her face plunging into a free fall. "That's why I called you, Quinn," she said. "That's exactly why."

  Trying not to act mystified, he nodded and said, "I see. Because—?"

  "I can't take the responsibility any more. It's just too much. And now that we're leaving, I was going to just throw them out or give them to I don't know who. But then you came—really, it was an act of God, your showing up in Keepsake and then George's father getting that heart attack out in Albuquerque. An incredible coincidence, don't you think?"

  "I don't know what else you can call it," he deadpanned.

  She plunged one hand into the sack of a purse she had on her lap and fished something out. "Well—here," she said, holding a fist toward Quinn. He extended his hand and she opened hers, dropping a heavy class ring into his outstretched palm. "Look at the initials."

  O.R.B. All that was missing was the Jr., which Rand had always despised. Quinn tried to seem sage. "Yep. The senior ring," he said, turning its faceted burgundy stone this way and that to catch the candle's light. Quinn had thrown his own ring away in disgust many years ago. "Probably only two men in town have those initials, and I guess the date tells us which of them lost this."

  "Lost it!" She snorted and said, "Rand gave it to Alison just before she was murdered. It was instead of an engagement ring. She told me so herself."

  They were first cousins. Not second, not third. First. The ring was a token of his promise to take care of her, no more than that.

  But that wasn't what Quinn said to Myra. "I'd heard rumors around town about the two of them," he admitted, feeling a sick obligation to let her run. "How did you come by this, anyway?"

  Quinn tried not to sound accusing; the last thing he wanted was to imply that he thought she was a thief.

&nbs
p; "Well, obviously she couldn't wear his ring out in the open," said Myra, a little testily, "so she wore it on a chain around her neck, under her sweaters and things. She was afraid if she took it off and left it in her purse, her father might go rummaging around and find it. He didn't want her seeing boys; he was always looking for evidence of it. You remember that, don't you, Quinn? How Alison never got to date?"

  He remembered it all too well. It had only added to Alison's allure, as fair as the guys were concerned. "Something like that," he said, trying to ward off the sinking feeling in his gut. If Myra was making all of this up, she was as good a storyteller as Ulysses.

  The waitress came with Myra's beer and she took a sip before resuming her tale. "Sometimes I think that's why Alison liked me," she mused. "Because I dated so much. I knew about, you know, psychology and stuff between guys and girls," she said, lowering those big, black lashes and batting them once or twice. She was Myra Lupidnick, after all; she truly could not help herself.

  "Did she talk about Rand much?"

  "Oh, not at all, at first. He was always 'this guy I like.' But I couldn't figure out where she'd get the chance even to meet a guy, much less develop some kind of relationship. I started watching her in school, I saw her talking to Rand in the hall once, and from the way she looked at him—from their body language—I knew."

  She shrugged and took a good long swallow of beer this time. "So I confronted her about it, and after a few times of denying it, she said, yeah, it was Rand. And then she opened up. I think, because she'd bottled it up so long and she had absolutely no one to talk to, and really, she was in love with him. It was ... she really loved him. You know?"

  Myra's face got a thoughtful, faraway look; she was back in her parents' split-level, advising the most beautiful and mysterious girl in town in matters of the heart.

  "It was the real thing," she murmured at last, shaking her head. "I felt so bad after they found her."

  "And yet you didn't say anything."

  "No. I didn't," Myra acknowledged.

  "Did the police ever question you?"

  "Hardly at all."

  She folded one hand meekly over the other and lifted the fingertips back a little, staring at her messed-up nails. She sighed, then looked up and said, "I was scared, Quinn. Don't forget, my dad was a foreman at the mill. He would have lost his job for sure. And after a while, when they didn't arrest anyone and the whole thing seemed to fade away, well, it didn't really make any difference anymore, did it?"

  It was all he could do not to pop her over the head with the Chianti bottle. Idiot! You could have done the right thing and come forward and my entire life would have been different!

  But he knew better than to go down that road. He'd been down it so many times before, and it always ended smack in the same brick wall. He reminded himself for the thousandth time that a dozen lives had been saved because a crime, this crime, had gone unsolved. It was enough. In the grand, chaotic scheme of things, it was enough.

  A thought occurred to him. "Does your husband—does George—know about any of this?"

  "Oh, no. I could never. That's just what I mean. That's why it's been eating a hole through me all these years. Right here," she said, pointing a chipped red fingernail at her heart. "And I'm just ... ready to start over. I really want to start over," she repeated, this time with a trembling lip.

  A big tear rolled out and sat on her thickly caked lower lashes, unable to break through and run. Quinn waited, mesmerized, for the tear to fall, but she blinked and it flattened into a saline line in the rim above her lashes.

  "I'm sorry," she said, dabbing at her eye with the back of her wrist and leaving a smudge on the skin there. "I didn't think I'd cry."

  Considering the amount of mascara she wore, that was Quinn's assumption, too. Her sincerity and good intentions touched him—much more at that moment than they ever had in high school. Somewhere under all that makeup was the still-pretty face of an ordinary girl who had always wanted simply to please.

  He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "Hey, now, Myra ... you've carried this ring around for a long time. You didn't have to do that. You could have just chucked it and forgotten about the whole thing, but you didn't. I think Alison would appreciate that you stayed loyal to her memory."

  "Really?" she asked, doing more dabbing, this time with a cocktail napkin.

  "Absolutely."

  He picked up Rand's ring and circled his thumb absently over the chiseled surface of its stone, sobered by the awareness that Alison Bennett had once slipped it over her finger and dreamed of setting up house with its owner.

  But had she really? The ring wasn't proof of anything. Thank God, it wasn't proof—even of paternity, much less of a murder. Quinn could rationalize that much. He could live with the responsibility that Myra was handing over to him. For entirely different reasons, he would do exactly what Myra had done: nothing. And if the ongoing silence ended up boring a tiny hole in his heart, so be it—because this time, finally, it was his turn for happiness.

  The waitress came over and asked to take their order, but neither of them was hungry, so they settled for splitting a side order of calamari. Quinn realized that he did not have even an appetizer's worth of small talk left in him, but he needn't have worried.

  Myra, looking more relieved and brighter by the minute, suddenly said in a much perkier voice, "I almost forgot!"

  She fished around in her purse again, and this time she came up with something more lethal. "The letter!"

  Chapter 21

  "What letter?"

  "From Rand. Oh. I guess I haven't filled you in. Do you want me to start from the beginning?"

  "Please.''

  Quinn accepted the letter from Myra, not daring to glance at it until he got his emotions under control. A letter from Rand. What next? A notarized confession? This was turning into the probe from hell.

  Myra took a deep breath and said, "Okay, this is what I know firsthand. Alison and Rand had been ... uh, well, doing it, since July in the summer after our junior year. Their first time was in the backseat of his—you remember the red Pontiac? God, I loved that car. It happened after he took her home early from a wake reception at his parents' house. Alison made up a story about how she thought she was coming down with something; that's how she got out of going home later with her parents. Even Rand believed her. But I guess she knew what she wanted.

  "After that, it was whenever and wherever they could. I remember she said they did it once in the gardener's cottage when you and your father were off buying some fancy trees for Mrs. Bennett. I'll bet you never knew that," Myra said, smiling behind her next sip of beer.

  "How right you would be," Quinn said faintly.

  Myra put down her glass with a grin; she was relaxed and in her element now. "Anyway, that's pretty much how the summer went," she said. "Alison was happy, all things considered, and no one was the wiser."

  "Except you?"

  "Not me! I didn't know any of this at the time; those two were amazing at keeping it secret. And besides, Alison and I didn't really become close until after we went back to school for senior year. I remember I told her how pretty her hair was, but that it would look fantastic if it was highlighted. I've always had a professional interest in hair, you know. She said she couldn't afford highlighting, so I offered to do it for her. They have kits. Anyway, that was in early September. I didn't learn about Rand until late September, and by October I knew she was pregnant."

  "She told you she was?"

  "Not in so many words. She said, 'I think maybe we were careless a few times.' Well, what else could that mean? Later, of course, I knew. Eventually, so did everyone."

  He nodded. "How did she seem about it?"

  "Not depressed or scared, if that's what you're thinking. I remember she just looked ... well, you know what they say about the glow of pregnancy."

  Quinn didn't have all that much experience with the glow of pregnancy—none, to be exact—so he se
ttled for a vague nod of recognition. "She had that glow?"

  "Oh, yes. She was radiant. No morning sickness, nothing. And don't forget, she had Rand's ring. She had his promise that they'd get married as soon as they got their parents' permission. Plus, she also had his word in writing."

  She pointed to the pale blue sheet that lay on the table in front of Quinn. It was his cue. He picked up the letter and began dutifully, reluctantly, unfolding it.

  Myra rested her cheek on her fist and said dreamily, "He bought that stationery special, you know. He told Alison that he wanted something permanent that wouldn't fade or tear. He wanted her to know how serious he was. I remember thinking, that was so sweet."

  Dearest Alison,

  I need you to know that their will never be another girl in my life. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I can't stop thinking of you, no matter where I am. In study hall, on the field, and driving around. I drive around a lot, thinking of you. I wish we could be together more. Nothing really matters to me except you. You know, I'm glad you're pregnant. Maybe I shouldn't be but I am. It's a sign that our love was meant to be. And also, since your pregnant our parents can't say no. I know my mother would never want you to have an abortion no matter what. And your mother wouldn't either. So I think we're o.k. on that. Know this, Alison—I love you. I love you. I love you.

  Yours, Rand

  Misspellings and bobbled punctuation aside, the letter was still powerful in its naive sincerity. Quinn felt like a voyeur reading it, and yet he couldn't help himself. It was like staring at a film of his past.

  At least one mystery was now solved: Rand's embarrassing collapse as an athlete in the fall of their senior year. It wasn't a poor recovery from his injury that had taken him out of the competition with Quinn to be quarterback; it was his obsession with Alison.

  Quinn refolded the letter and laid it gently beside the class ring—two such ordinary items, and yet so resonant with power. He stared at them while the candle's flame sputtered and fretted in the chianti bottle, dropping bits of light in a random pattern over the poignant still life.